Punkinface's pumpkin

This is so awesome. Punkinface drew me a pumpkin. I held it up next to him and said, "It looks just like you!" 

To which he replied, "Nuh-uh. It has different eyes!"

do dogs lay eggs?

Punkinface always has me crackin' up, but yesterday he said, "If Cheyenne laid a dog, would she be on a farm?"

Not that funny? Allow me to explain. Cheyenne is his dad's dog. She's old, but super sweet. She, obviously, is a female. Hence, she can have pups. However, she does not.

April's mom, Punkinface's grandma, raises chickens who lay eggs and lives on a nice slice of acreage (could be construed as a farm-type situation.) He's familiar with that farm-ish, egg-laying hens in the coop lifestyle. He plays with the hens and gets chased by the roosters. He knows about laying eggs. I think - although I don't know for sure - that he believes that human babies are hatched, or laid, also. It's too cute at this point to correct him if he does. Anyhoo...

He must've assumed Cheyenne, a dog, as well as every other girl dog, lays baby puppies like every hen dropping a chicken egg that he has ever seen. Coupled with his cute factor, this conversation made me laugh.

it wakes!

Yes, the blog has slumbered many a moon, but I will attempt to wake the beast! Rise, blog, rise from your restful sleep and begin to tell the world again of the many adventures that you have born witness to!

This blog pulled a Houdini. Vanished into thin air. Or so it seemed. But, it was really just taking a nap behind the old oak tree. Rip Van Winkle-style apparently. So, here I am, once again trying to wake the slumbering dragon...

But, it's tough. SO MUCH goes on that I hardly have time to write it down before I find myself doing something else. It's like I would need nanny cams all over the house to catch the stuff on tape, just so I can remember it later. But, that ain't happening. What will happen, hopefully, is that I will begin to jot things down here and there on this blog as religiously (pun intended) as I do my other blog (See John 5:17). Have you bookmarked that one yet? You should. Seriously...

Okay, so the slumbering beast has been stirred. Let's see if it stays awake this time. And for a recap, we now have 8 KIDDOS: M, J-Girl, Lil' A, Lil' B, G, Rubberface (formerly J-Boy), Punkinface (formerly E) and Baby Dude (formerly Mini Me.)

Why "M?"  Nothing crazy fancy. Her name starts with "m." And it's a pretty cool name. Too bad I'm not gonna mention it here. Moving on...

Why "J-Girl?" Her name starts with "j" and so does her younger brother's. And the "-Girl" part to is distinguish between the two. However, as you will see below, her brother's codename has been altered, so the "-Girl" part is now just pure nostalgia.

Why "Lil' A?" As you may gave guessed, her name begins with...."a!" However, so does my wife's. And since our daughter looks like a little version of my wife, it only helps make this name more awesome.

Why "Lil' B?" You're catching on. Yes, his name starts with "b." And so does mine. And to be honest, since I don't speak in third person, his codename could just be "B" and there be zero confusion, but he's a kid and littler than me and it sounded cool.

Why "G?" This name just sounds cool - and yea, his name starts with this letter. "G" has become an endearing term people call other people who are cool. Yes, this letter used to be short for "gangsta" back in the day, but that was when "gangsta" was derogatory. Today, it means "overall neat dude" or "baller."

Why "Rubberface?" He makes tons of different faces and can squish his cheeks around. I called him this one day and he laughed so hard we decided to go with it. For a moment, maybe a day, he wanted to be called "Legoface," but that didn't last.

Why "Punkinface?" Started off with a Lego pumpkin head - which is a bit dog-chewed, but still in existence. From there and most likely due to his usage of the said pumpkin head, I began calling him punkinhead. From there, he and I used to call each other "punkinhead," then "punkinarms," "punkinlegs," "punkinears," etc - which we still do. Somewhere along the line "Punkinface" stuck and there it is.

Why "Baby Dude?" Because he's my baby and he's a dude.

The kiddos' codenames are designed to not blow their cover in the field. They're secret agents. Obviously...

so much stuff!

WE HAD OUR BABY!!! Now I have 7 kiddos already, but watching our 8th - my first biological child - being born was incredible. I think it just hit me the other day I have a baby. I was walking around this past week in sort of a daze. I remember saying at the hospital how surreal this whole thing was. I didn't freak out about blood, or seeing EVERYTHING at the birth or even cutting the umbilical cord. I did fine. Thank the Lord, right? Because normally...I'd be on the floor with all that going on.

The kiddos love our new one also. G was telling us he gets to help with the diapers - um, okay! E said he gets to tuck the baby - Mini Me - in bed every night and said.

"And I'm gonna read him a story. Oh wait. I'm gonna tell him a story because I don't know how to read yet."

Preciousness. And J-Boy gave him is own blue baby blanket, which was a huge message of L-O-V-E. And M and Lil' A all dressed up to meet their new baby brother. (M was at the hospital for the delivery and loves to claim she was the first person to ever give Mini Me a kiss. That's a cool honor!)

And Lil' B spiffed up nicely. He was beaming when we brought baby home. And the ringleader of this welcome home parade was J-Girl. She kept calling asking, "When exactly are y'all gonna be home" over and over. It was awesome and all the kiddos were amazing.

Okay, so...so much stuff to talk about. Christmas was great, except for M perhaps wanting a complete do-over with her gifts. Alas, that ain't happening...

But, the kiddos got so much stuff from everyone. And, on top of that, got their little brother Christmas night. More on Mini Me's birth in another post. There are some cool numbers happening there if you're into that sort of thing.

A month or so back E and I were playing action figures - um, that's right! - and I took a few shots right before  the mob went crazy. Take a look...

As you can see, it was good guys versus bad guys. I personally love the last one with Wolverine keeping Boba Fett in check. You may have noticed Iron Man on the ground looking not-so-good. Don't worry. He made it out okay!

Being a reporter right in the midst of this battle was crazy. Although from different dimensions, the superheroes/supervillians were well matched against their Star Wars Rebellion/Empire counterparts. Plus, I believe there were some army dudes, some GI Joe, that were, again, from separate worlds, but fought valiantly. It was awesome and E had a great time.

If I talk a moment about this blog...I'm not lazy, per say, but I do fancy myself someone who loves to have all my ducks in a row...and blogs in the same place. I had this blog previously on PastorBrennan.com but moved it back here, but now...I think I'd get to this a lot more often than once a month if I had on the site I go to ten times a day. I just hope if and when I do move it, you guys will venture that way, despite any opinion one way or the other as to my amount of "religious" commentaries.

I will look to devote an area to my site for Adventures in Role Modeling so that everyone can see the day-to-days of our family shenanigans.

But, again, how cool is that Wolverine vs. Boba Fett picture! Right? C'mon!

"Can I be a writer?"

E just asked me that. Um, of course! Last night he showed us his "special sandwich" book he wrote. He folded a bunch of written and colored on memo-sized pieces of paper together like a...book. The sandwich, which I promised him we'd make today, has several of the rainbow colors in it apparently, so we'll see how that pans out. Anyhoo...

        "Can I be a writer?"

He was so excited when he asked me that. I love that he wants to write. And look - he's already got a published book! Today he brought in another, larger book that was about, among other things, a "police dragon king horse." In case you didn't know, allow me to break down what "police dragon king horse" means: He has combined the idea of the police Lego man he has, a Lego horse and then these rotating characters called "Dragon Kings" - depending on who has the cape, Lego torso with the dragon emblem on it or knight's helmet at the time. Rules vary day to day.

He was so cute today coming in and announcing he wants to be a writer. April was doing her make-up and kept "ahh'ing." Then he asked...

                 "Do you think it's a good idea?"

I told him, "I think it's the best idea ever, punkinface!"

time has flown

Well, gang, it has been a bit since I last fired up this blog and I realize that I was mistaken for lumping this personal stuff in with our public outreach stuff. Some of you have expressed your wishes for me to talk more about life with April and the kiddos - apart from our ministries. More like a publicly private family message center. So, the blog is back. I do hope you continue to frequent our other sites to get my devotionals, random thoughts and notes, and daily doses of what I think it is to live a WWJD? lifestyle. Anyhoo...

Time gets away from us when we're not looking. Here it is almost December and we got a baby coming soon. A Christmas baby! Awesome! We've had two wonderful Thanksgiving dinners, one with my side of the family and one with April's. Good talks. Good meals. It has been a blessing. We are truly grateful for those put in our lives.

Hm. Lemme see...things you guys need to get caught up on...M's first high school dance, the fish she (may have possibly) sent prematurely up the sewage river, Baby E's (not to be confused with E the awesome 4 yr-old) Star Wars baby shower and all the awesome things we've received for his room, Lil' A and April getting their stuff into a consignment shop called "Anomaly Shop" in downtown McKinney. There's a lot of stuff.

Check back soon for it!

I'm Seriously!

E has a new phrase that has seemingly – except for random times – replaced his patented “That’s how!”And if you couldn’t tell from the title of this post, his new adamant proclamation after most things he says is, “I’m seriously!”

It’s pretty much awesome every time he says it. It’s kinda like you halfway want to tell him that’s not quite how to say it, but the majority of you wants him to keep saying it the way he wants. Like not telling him yet that just because nickels are bigger than dimes, it doesn’t make the nickel worth more. You know?

So, even though we aren’t trying to defy his ability to grow up, we are, in effect, attempting to defy his ability to grow up too fast.

And I’m seriously about that!